Right Where He Wants Me

Isn't it amazing how God places certain challenges into our lives at just the right moment?

Really. He's so good like that.

He seems to know just when all of us need setbacks and limitations, hang-ups and trials; to hone our skills, prune our proverbial stems, and ultimately, make us better and more equipped for living holy lives in this crazy world. Thank goodness for the fruit such times bear...

Right now would seem like the worst time for me to lose my voice. We are desperately trying to get established--ready the home, meet new people in our day-to-day, schedule doctors visits and line-up health coverage. Instead, I am mute. Initially very frustrating, but in the end, very blessed.

I have been receiving ample lessons of late from my trial of silence. There is no yelling, no frustration, no nothing in our home--just sounds of laughter and play from two little boys and their mama. There is no temptation to chat away the day on the phone or to busy the afternoon with business-related phone calls and tasks!  Instead, in my silence, I am "forced" to cater to my family and to my home.  There has been greater inward attention and might I say, beautiful results. 

I can't tell you how surprisingly *wonderful* yesterday was. I was really dreading it--how does one mother without sound?  I got my answer: she does it with love, tenderness, hugs, and small gestures that go much further toward achieving her desired end of well-behaved, happy children than raised voices do.  Sigh.  If only these lessons were more easily learned.

If only I could glean such goodness without having to lose my voice. Sadly, I can't and I couldn't, and God knows it. He knew a "check-it-off-the-list" kind of person like me, moving into a new home and town, needed to have a greater reason for respite.  And I got it. 

So respite away we go...  Here are some shots of the boys from yesterday's backyard picnic.  They were too busy to smile and pose.  

Hope you are enjoying a blessed Wednesday.

From the land of mute mamas--God bless!!  ;)

Laryn Girl

Did you know?

*Clearing your throat does more harm than good, because it causes an abnormal vibration of your vocal cords and can increase swelling. Clearing your throat also causes your throat to secrete more mucus and feel more irritated, making you want to clear your throat again.

*Someone suffering from Laryngitis should avoid whispering. This puts even more strain on your voice than normal speech does. (Great! Anyone want to teach me and the boys sign language?)

*Prevention tip: Avoid talking or singing too loudly or for too long. (Anyone who knows B-mama, knows this is a real problem. I am beyond chatty... and LOVE to sing in the car with the boys! Just the other day, M asked me not to sing so loudly as we were driving! lol. Can you blame me--Power of Two was playing by The Indigo Girls?)

Source: www.mayoclinic.com

I am on Day #3 of forced silence and it's killing me.  

Alright, that might be a bit dramatic, but I have to say this is really a challenge for an outgoing mama like me!  Help!  I guess that list of phone calls to make gets pushed back another day... Oh well!  

Cheers to my silent "retreat"--if only the rest of the world could get on board, I wouldn't feel so alone.  :)  God bless you today.  Please offer up prayers of thanksgiving for your voices for me!!

Trying to Overachieve

But failing miserably.

Today, my 31-week pregnant self thought it would be a grand idea to mow the lawn in 100F heat.  

"You can do it, " I told myself, "Just take it in spurts and drink plenty of water."

"No problem, " I encouraged myself as I filled the tank with gas and checked the oil.

But then came time to pull the cord.

Once...  Twice...  Three times... and beyond.

And... nothing.

Sometimes it is in our limitations that we SAVE ourselves from making STUPID decisions.

Thank goodness!!!  

What was I thinking???

Prego shorts

As I wrap up week 24 of this blessed pregnancy, I just had to share a quick prego funny and a few profile shots with you. First, the funny:

The other night I was making a chicken and rice casserole and appropriately dragged out my rice cooker. It has been a new addition to my kitchen after our first one broke years ago. I finally bought one on sale at Target and have used it a few times, but am still very dependent on the manual for operation. Well, the manual was nowhere to be found and I knew I needed equal parts rice and water, so away I went. I flipped on the cooker and busied myself with the prep for the other ingredients... Minutes later, I smelled burning and the machine turned off by itself, much too soon for the rice to be done. I was so angry (pregnancy hormone-induced!), swearing off rice cookers for the rest of my life. I let the machine cool down a bit and then flipped it on again to cook. It "worked" for a few minutes again and then shut off. "Oh well," I thought, "I'm just going to let it sit there and maybe the rice will eventually be ready." The smell of burning was really prevalent now and my rice-cooker-cursing was even more outstanding! Finally, the rice was done and I proceeded with my casserole, only to later lift the rice cooker pot and find this:

I cooked my rice cooker manual! Boy, am I definitely pregnant!

The shots below confirm this... my bump is growing! Hope you all are enjoying a wonderful weekend! God bless!

B-mama Meme

Here's a fun little get-to-know-you kind of thing, passed along by dear Shannon from over at "A Friend of Gianna"! Thanks Shannon!

Rules of the meme:
1. Post these rules of the game first.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names. Then the tagger goes to the blogs of those who have been tagged & leaves a comment letting new players know they’ve been tagged. The tagger asks them to find the meme and instructions back at his/her blog.

What I was doing 10 years ago: I was heading into the end of my second semester freshman year at Princeton; my academic schedule included an Arthurian Literature Seminar and a studio Drawing class (two of my all-time fave classes of college!) After learning I had two femoral stress fractures in January of that year, I was nursing my leg back to health and beginning to run 3x/week again. I was much chubbier due to all the studying, non-exercising, and excessive college eating! I was also dating a guy, who ended up being less-than-perfect, though I would have argued at the time that he hung the moon. I soon began crushing on an amazing guy--GG! :)

Five things on my To Do List today:
1. Workout—lifting and elliptical.
2. Playdate at 10am.
3. Talk to mortgage rep.
4. Re-list Craigslist ad.
5. Finish thawing chicken and make marinade—marinate chick by 4pm.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Adopt oodles of African and Asian babies (ala. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt! :).
2. Donate money to the Catholic Church.
3. Invest in my brother-in-law’s business venture(s).

Three of my bad habits:
1. Staying up too late.
2. Spending too much time on the computer! (usually causing #1)
3. Overestimating time/showing up late.

Five places I have lived:
1. Sylvania, OH
2. Princeton, NJ
3. Colorado Springs, CO (could have lived there forever!)

Five jobs I’ve had:
1. babysitter
2. flower planter/weeder/landscaper
3. lifeguard and swim coach
4. middle and high school teacher
5. mama!! (nothing could have prepared me for this job! :)

Now I tag Rachel, Carolina Girl, Amy, Jessica, and sw! Enjoy meme-ing girls!

Retail Therapy

While I know its not the most responsible... frugal... or possibly ethical thing to do...
A mama's gotta have some new duds!! :) Especially when her belly is beginning to blossom.
Retail therapy, here I come.

And what better a day to shop than on President's Day, to celebrate the manly men of the world, who provided so that women like me could head to the mall! lol. :)

The boys and I actually had a great morning, T-baby strapped to the umbrella stroller and M, trotting alongside while his mama shopped. We headed to Sears, where I found great sales and picked up two maternity items--a baby blue eyelet shirt for $6.99 and a cute denim sundress for $23. Not too shabby! I then fulfilled my promise to the two of them, heading straight for the kids' play area and allowing them ample time to run, crawl, slide, and climb. Afterward, we headed to the maternity shop, where I purchased the beloved "belly band" for keeping non-maternity pants "afloat" and helping to lower waistlines of too-short shirts. It is the perfect item for an in-between prego mama!

Our adventures carried us to Panera and we dined on bagels and soup while enjoying one another's company. Bravo to a wonderful morning out! We came home refreshed and renewed... yet awfully tired! The boys sleep as I type and I'm ready to zonk myself.

Of course not before my personal fashion show. Are you kidding me?!
Retail therapy, gotta love it.
God bless you on this President's Day!

Escaping

I escaped the dull and blustery weather yesterday afternoon and snuck away to the beauty salon...

emerging a NEW WOMAN!

Praise God for no more ponytails.

Praise God for hi-lites (I can dream of living in sun-kissed Florida, right?!)

Praise God for change when the world seems dismally the same, day after chilly day.

Welcome to the new B-mama! She's here to stay for awhile! Hallelujah, hallelujah!! And did I mention the excitement of all three of my boys at their mama's new looks? They are beyond cute and have been so complimentary since.
Again, hallelujah!

God bless!

The kitchen hoarder

Normally in Gasperini-Ville, we pride ourselves on family meals, sitting down and enjoying one another's company as we feast together. GG and I feel this time is of utmost importance as we come together under one roof at the end of a long day and model good manners/great palates to our children.

Tonight, however, was a different kind of dinner as the boys and I were on our own because GG had class. As if nothing had changed, M and T dove right into their green peas, shoveling them in by the spoonful. I am so grateful my children like vegetables! And yet the irony of it all was that there I stood in the kitchen, hoarding pieces of a warm french bread loaf dipped in homemade pesto, thanking God that I didn't have to eat thawed frozen peas and what was to come--meatballs. What a hypocrite I was and yet I loved every minute of it! :)

I would take bites of bread and then saunter around the corner to check on their progress. There they sat, sweetly eating away their green vegetables (I guess mine including green basil, eh?) while their mom gorged herself on delicacy in the next room! lol. I was pathetic!

So why didn't I just bite the bullet and eat with them at the table?
Yet another mother irony coming here... because I didn't want to share.
I knew as soon as they saw my bread they would want some... but I wanted it.
Yikes! I'm as bad as my two-year-old!

I've actually been caught in a few too many of these kitchen-hoarding moments lately.
Just yesterday, M found me eating out of the pickle jar and insisted on having one (which he spit out after one bite)! Later that day, he also nabbed me with a spoon in the ice cream carton (I'm living the pregnant cliche, I admit!). BUSTED! Of course I had to give him at least one spoonful to keep him quiet! "Don't tell your brother," was all I could muster in my shame. Heaven forbid we'd have to share with one additional person in the household! lol. :)

Am I alone in my kitchen hoarding in this innocent world?
Or are there other mama and daddy hoarders lurking out there?
If you're one of them, join the club. I think we've earned it! :)

Enjoying my full belly of pesto and bread...
God bless.

Basking

I am basking in the afterglow of a wonderful birthday...

1 morning of freedom to do what I pleased
2 birthday cakes from family and friends
3 sweet boys, who loved on me all day
5 mylar balloons, delivered to my doorstep last night by two friends
8 in our lunch party at Friday's (my parents and grandparents drove in to celebrate!)
12 in our dinner party at Chik Fil-A
15+ pieces/blades in my new food processor (quote of the day from my dad, "You should be able to put this thing together without directions..." How male! :)
29 candles
1000's of reasons to feel extremely blessed

Thanks for your wonderful birthday wishes!
It was truly a great day.
And I don't even feel that much older. Hallelujah! ;)

10 years?

As I mentioned before, this past weekend was my high school class' tenth reunion. What a blast it was! Really. It was so entertaining overall, I thought I'd write a top 10 list to honor the ten years past. Here goes...

THE TOP TEN REASONS TO RETURN FOR ONE'S TENTH REUNION

10. Hanging crepe paper streamers beforehand may hone one's rusty decorating skills. Are the streamers hanging symmetrically? Do we need more twists? Excellent. :)

9. The trip down memory lane serves to spark a youthful enthusiasm, making you think you have as much energy and motivation as you did 10+ years ago. That's a good thing for this worn-out mama!! :)

8. You're not as fat, as wrinkly, or as out of touch as the other guy. (This is a horrible reason, but I had to include it!) lol. :) You'd never believe some of the changes in people in ten years!

7. Staying out until 2 a.m. every once-in-a-while is good for the soul. Right? Still wondering.

6. Talking to folks from the past is really heartwarmning. It brings one back to her roots, which is always a good thing.

5. You may learn a thing or two from some learned classmates, e.g. our generation (1977-1999) are called "millenials". Who knew?

4. Dancing to Madonna's Immaculate Collection never gets old.

3. Your spouse may surprise you by being such a good sport. So good that he escapes half the night with the other husbands to watch football in the nearby lounge. Fine by me! (Oh, and the Irish won! What could be better?)

2. You'll return home, embrace your children, and praise God that you are well beyond high school.

1. You may find, when all is said and done, that you grew up around really good people, who may not think like you or agree with you, but in the end have really good hearts.

I feel very blessed to have gone to school with the people I did--not a shabby place to end up after a heartwarming tenth reunion, don't you think?

Scath88 and B-mama

Wouldn't you know it!

I slammed my finger in one of our kitchen drawers Saturday night while cooking.
No one was around and thank goodness! It hurt SO bad (yeah, that's capitalized and italicized). Really, I had to hum low tones/groans for minutes just to bear with the pain (incidentally this is also a technique for dealing with pain in natural labor; not that I would know--2 epidurals here. :) All night my finger throbbed and I thought at one point that it was broken...

Oh no. No sir. No broken bones. NOR wounds. NOR gashes. NOR practically anything.
What do I have as a result of all my pain and turmoil, you ask?

A bruise. A very small bruise on my fingernail. Are you kidding me? :)

I explained the whole story to GG and I could tell he was feeling very sorry for me until... He saw the pathetically uninjured fingernail-- "Oh, that's it."

Ugh! Madness! :)

I just had to blog about it. lol.

God bless you for listening! Thanks! :)

The pathetic injury with bruise barely visible on the middle finger.